Someone Like You
by RaeynnBeau
Summary: Call and Response/Companion fic to AzureSpice's. Zim has another hair-brained scheme to execute in his pursuit of world dominance, and his faithful Information Robot has been caught in the cross hairs once again. Will Dib figure out what's going on with the new kid at their High School, or is he just glad to have a friend? Set several years post-series, rated for mild swearing.


**A/N****:** This is a role play Azure Spice and I have been doing for a while - we decided to convert it into a call and response sort of fanfiction, for lack of a better descriptor. It's been edited and tweaked a little because of the change in format, but for the most part, it's how we originally wrote it, and we are each posting our own posts as chapters. The first post was mine, so the first chapter is naturally mine - for the next chapter you'll have to wait for her post, and I'll let you know what that fic is called once she puts it up.

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Human Meat Sack

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"GIR! Tell me - how do you _feel_?" was the first thing that the robot heard upon opening his eyes. How did he feel ...? Why was the master asking such a silly question - GIR knew full well that he couldn't feel anything, and he was pretty sure his master did too, because, I mean, GIR is a _robot_. Sure, he _liked_ things, like tacos, though that was mostly because the taco man told him to; he must obey the taco man. Watching the Angry Monkey Show was on the list as well ... But asking him how he _felt_ ...? That made less sense to GIR than most things on the human planet did ... Sitting up (though he didn't particularly remember laying down) he glanced around for a second, to take in his surroundings; he would have considered the fact that he didn't remember going down into the base situated beneath the house, but he was far more preoccupied with the realization that he was missing something crucial.

He couldn't scan his surroundings, like he normally did ... Where was his grid system ... and his analysis system was acting strangely; he couldn't tell the composition of any of the surrounding structures - he had the memorized, because let's face it, he spent enough time in the lab to do at least that much with little to no effort, but still ... Had the master tried to upgrade him again and broken something ...? That wouldn't do - how was he supposed to collect data to be of use if he couldn't analyze things ... ...?

"Master, what did ..." He stopped dead in the middle of the thought when he raised one of his robot limbs up to flail, as was customary when he was talking about ninety percent of the time. This was because instead of seeing the normal grey triangle at the end of the cylindrical metal arm with the opposable thumb that he was used to seeing when he wasn't in disguise ... He saw something quite different (though still with the opposable thumb) ... It was the color of a human meat sack's outside covering - epidermis, he thought it was called. Yes - epidermis. That strange, peach-y color, sort of like that Dib-human that his master always fought with. Which was more than slightly odd, considering that ... Well, perhaps it was a new sort of disguise or something, instead of wearing the green dog suit. That made sense, right? He supposed it did to him. And so, doing the logical thing, he reached up, took a hold of the meat-sack epidermis and pulled to take it off - he didn't need to wear a costume when he was inside the lab, so he might as well take it off.

However, the hitch in his plan came when he pulled and instead of sliding off of his wiry chrome frame, it stretched a little, and then there was a strange sensation ... The Information Robot's brow furrowed, and he started to pull a little harder, staring at his hand. "It ... Master it - it; it won't come off ..." This was completely normal GIR behavior, as he very suddenly started to panic and frantically scream as he pulled at the skin to try and get it off. When that didn't look like it was going to happen, because every time he started to pull, it would hurt (which was an entirely new concept to him) so badly that he had to stop puling, he started to flail around the laboratory, essentially attempting to get away from himself.

That stopped when he ran into a wall hard enough that he fell onto the floor and laid there twitching for a few moments ... Eventually he slowly sat up as he normally would have, and realized that his entire equilibrium was off ... well, alright, perhaps not _off_, but ... Inherently different, because he weaved when he did so before managing to remain upright. Which was kind of frightening - or at least, it would be if GIR knew how to feel fear or uncertainty. If he _did_ though, then that's probably exactly what he'd be feeling right now.

I mean, if he could feel.

Which he couldn't.

Because he was a robot.

At least, that was what he thought ... until he looked up and saw his reflection in the polished surface of the equipment that he had careened into. Let's just say that all of his asumptions about himself had just been completely destroyed, because that was definitely him that he was seeing, as was evidenced when he picked up a hand and touched his own face rather roughly, and the mirror image did the same.

He was now in fact no longer what appeared to be a robot, which at the very least explained why he could no longer see through walls and immediately analyze his surroundings among many, many other things ... He looked like a human meat sack, and it was very disorienting that he was now the same species as the one that his master was always fighting with - namely Dib. But that was the end of his similarities with the large headed human; he had different color fuzz on his head - it was brown, rather than black, and it didn't come to some weird kind of point in the back; it was oddly sort of flopped all over his head ... However, there _was_ a strange spike coming out of the front of the mop of hair that was an odd silver color with a bright blue tip on the end. He was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be there, since he hadn't seen any humans with hair that color ... but he knew that there was that substance that changed human meat sack hair colors artificially, so perhaps this new disguise would be alright. Technically, GIR had never heard of a green dog before either, and no one here had ever questioned that before ... ...

"... ... ..." he was silent for a long time, looking into the now 'normal' blue human meat sack eyes, which were much less efficient than the ones that he was used to looking through. Tilting his head to the side slightly, GIR blinked for a few moments and slowly pointed to the reflection that was sitting in front of him; the image he saw did the same. "... ... ... ... ... YA~~Y!" was all he shrieked before throwing himself at the reflection as if to hug it or some other strange, spontaneous reaction. Actually, he was having a very deep conflict at the moment; on the one hand, this new guise made sense to help in probing for information so that his master could conquer this world and become the sole Irkin overlord of this planet. Hence the enthusiastic 'yay' he exuded. The fact that it looked like he was hugging his reflection was him physically ... embracing the fact that this was a great opportunity. He just ... didn't know how he felt about no longer being a robot, and instead being a human meat sack ... ... Blending in with the dominant race on the planet was one thing, but ...

"Exxxxxxxxxcellent, then all is going to plan- EXACTLY-TO-PLAN! GIR!" at the sharp shout of his own name, GIR peeled his face away from the machine he had thrown himself on, turning mutely to look at his enthusiastic master, waiting for the directive that was sure to follow his name being said as it was. "STARTING TOMOROW YOU WILL REPORT TO SKOOL (1) WITH ME! YOUR MASTER _COMMAAAAAAANDS YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU_!"

"Yes, my master!" he said, immediately standing and saluting when Zim gave the command for him to, apparently, attend skool. Which, didn't make much sense to the former robot immediately, but then again, it was Zim's master plan; he was the invader. GIR was just the information gathering unit. He supposed, taking that into consideration, that maybe it made sense for him to go to the human skool and gather information _there_, since it was a place he rarely ever went, and the new surroundings might have needed to be analyzed, but ...

Well ... he thought maybe his master had done a little _too_ well with this disguise because ... GIR was pretty sure that he was a good deal less useful when he didn't have the ability to engage the jet packs in his feet for a quick getaway (to be fair, when his fuel tanks were full of tuna instead of jet fuel, it sort of made them a little bit less than useful anyway, but who could pass up such a convenient hiding place for tuna?) and when he couldn't see through walls and tell what the composition of earth-things were, well ... It seemed like that would make his information gathering job quite a bit more difficult ...

But, maybe that was the point? Maybe GIR had already gathered as much information as he usefully could the way that he used to be ... and that was why his master had done this to him ...?

He needed to go watch the Scary Monkey Show with his piggy ...

Now that he was human, he seemed to have gained the acute ability to have a mental breakdown because his meat-sack brain didn't have the capacity to process things in the same way that his computer-like mind had been programmed to ... And right now there were _a lot_ of things to process ...

Or maybe he'd make biscuits.

GIR liked biscuits.

With that thought, a cheerful rendition of the song that he could normally be heard 'do'-ing suddenly burst up from his now meat-sack throat, and the brown haired (apparently) high skool student sort of ... Wandered off. It seemed like he was looking around in a sort of daze, but really, he was attempting to take in his new surroundings - everything was so ... _different_ now ... So less detailed, but oddly ... Just as stimulating.

The elevator came down to lab level while he continued to sing his upbeat little 'do-di-do-do-do" while he waited; getting on, he pushed the button that would take him up to the main floor of the house. It seemed at this point that everything had finally gotten to him. He couldn't take it any more - he was suddenly a stupid meat sack human because his master had made him this way for his mission, there was literally nothing he could do about it, and he could probably never go back to being a robot again, even after whatever phase of Zim's mission this change was required for was over.

So, spontaneously, he did the first thing that came to mind.

As the elevator started to go up, he began screaming.

Hysterically.

* * *

GIR had gone to class in the morning, as his master had commanded. It was harder to memorize things with the new meat sack brain he now had, but he managed to get where he was going for the most part without too much trouble. His master had sort of just ... _Assumed_ that he would know what was going on in skool now, even though GIR hadn't been to the establishment at all since he had been in the Middle skool, and now he was in the High School. Now he was apparently also required to change rooms for every subject, rather than stay in the same room for each class, so it was a bit iffy as to whether or not this would go alright in the long run. As it was, GIR had nearly leapt out of his desk when the bell had rung signaling the beginning of homeroom, shrieking spontaneously and getting dead looks from everyone else in the classroom.

"You a new kid?" the teacher had asked; GIR was under the impression it was some sort of gym teacher, because he had on a t-shirt and shorts on with a whistle around his neck. GIR nodded with a smile that was sort of his default expression when he was caught off guard and didn't know what to do. "What's yer name?" And here was where the fatal flaws of this plan started; GIR didn't have a name - and if that Dib-rival that his master had ever found out that GIR was here, in a meat sack 'disguise' ... ... Actually, it might be funny; no one ever seemed to believe the Dib-human, even when he pointed out obvious problems with his master's plan to other humans. Of course, Zim always said he was just putting in them there in order to give the humans a sporting chance, but either way, even being blatantly told about them never seemed to help them catch on to the fact that his master was an alien.

"Uhh ... Iammmgiir ..." he murrmured quickly, sounds slurring together, hoping that no one would question the name, or maybe even understand what he'd said. They could just call him 'new kid', that was fine ... The feeling of nervousness was new to him, but started getting a good deal of practice in feeling it when everyone just seemed to _stare_ at him. Instead of nervously breaking down and repeating his name though, since he didn't know that on-edge habit yet, he opted for the habit he _did_ have - regurgitating information, usually in an explosive, disruptive manner. And he tended to have a _lot_ of random information, since he was, of course, an information gathering unit ... "I LIKE BISCUITS! AND THE SCARY MONKEY!" he shrieked suddenly, head tilting back with the force of it.

"I had an uncle named Alamgir," (2) the teacher-man said with a nod at the front of the classroom, "good to have you aboard." he finished before going to do roll-call. GIR was honestly stunned; had that worked? No one was looking at him weirdly anymore ... Well ... ... Whatever; his master _had_ said human meat sacks were gullible time and again; suppose GIR just hadn't realized _how_ gullible. A bell rang twice, and someone's voice very suddenly began to boom through the room; if GIR had still been an Information Gathering Robot, he would have discovered immediately that it was the PA system, and that the voice was actually in a room that was on the same floor, about 47.5 meters west of where he was. However, as he was _not_ a robot any more, he could only just jump in his chair again with another spontaneous shriek before the voice said,

"Please stand for the pledge." Everyone stood, and so, GIR sort of did so too, in a belated kind of way. "I pledge alleg ... Allgejee ... Alle ... ... Something ... something ... to the ... something ... mmmngeric ... to ... Blick ... ... stands ... n'tion ... underdog ... literacy ... ... For all." Suffice to say GIR had no _idea_ what was going on or what had just happened. He wasn't sure exactly what was happening when the bell rang for a third time, once again causing him to shriek. He noticed quickly afterwards that Zim had gotten up to leave the room, however, so he went over to the Irkin Invader and asked where he was going. To which he'd gotten the reply about being stupid now that he'd been turned into a meat sack human, but it had been a necessary sacrifice ... GIR just sort of tuned him out until Zim got to the part that was relevant; the fact that he had to go to a new classroom on that piece of paper the partially brain dead secretary in the main office had given him. And that he had something called a 'locker', which may or may not have been some sort of torture device, but at this point, he honestly couldn't be sure that his master was telling him the truth, or that the Irkin Invader even know what he was talking about himself ...

Wandering around, he'd managed to get to his first class, which was labeled something called "HST"; when he had gotten to the correct room number, he saw the word "History" written on the chalkboard, and he was pretty sure that had something to do with what had already happened. When he'd gotten there, he had given the teacher his name, and the teacher had _sort_ of responded by gesturing to the seats, where GIR sat down. Then, they were supposed to watch this movie ... Thing.

Well, anyway, the teacher put it in - and it was a short clip, only fifteen minutes or so, but, that wasn't important. What was important was that when it ended, GIR had the overwhelming compulsion to say, "I WANNA WATCH IT AGA~~IN!", and throw his hands in the air in an enthusiastic manner - which he did. Alright, so he more like _screamed_ it, but he was a very loud unit, so that could hardly be his fault. There was a pause, and then, the teacher, surprisingly complied, re-winding the tape and playing it again. It wasn't that GIR had really wanted to see it again, but ... That was sort of what he did when he watched something; he'd watch as many times as needed until he memorized it - and that was going to be a lot more now that he had this inefficient meat sack brain as his information storage unit.

They got to the end of it a second time, and again, he very loudly professed that he wanted to watch it again. So they did. However, the third time that he made the declaration, there was a pause, and one of the other kids in the class started to laugh in a sort of slow, dead way that humans seemed to do things before saying in a quiet sort of vague monotone, "You're funny." GIR wasn't sure how to respond to that statement, but thankfully, he didn't have to formulate an answer - the teacher put the tape in again. Suffice to say that was how the whole class went until that accursed bell rang again, and they had to leave for another class.

This one was titled BIO on the Paper that Commanded him to Attend Class, and Dictated to Which Class He Went Next. The teacher was a woman, and she was very flowery and bubbly; they were apparently talking about cells and how they split or something. And, while GIR took out a notebook and started scribbling on the paper, as he noticed other people doing, since he had finally figured out what he was supposed to do with the paper and pencil he had been supplied with, he sort of stopped paying attention. To be fair, he already inherently _knew_ this, because he had learned it when he was still a robot, and he did still apparently have some of the information he had compiled over the years. He doodled away, not really paying attention to what he was drawing ...

Until he looked down and saw that there was a piggy on his paper. Which prompted him to think of when his master had made that time machine to send his Hunter Destroyer Machine through, and had instead taken all of GIR's piggys to send back in time. (Speaking of which, it had been a complete _bitch_ to repair Zim after he'd put the last one in his head, and GIR hadn't been able to salvage the little thing from the viscous goo that was inside his master's skull and thereby coating said piggy. He'd unfortunately had to get rid of it).,This of course made him upset, because now he didn't have any more piggys ...

"I LOVEDED YOU PIGGY! I LOVEDED YOUU-UUUU," came the spontaneous, random scream, and then, sort of ... Smashing of his forehead into the table he was sitting at, head hitting the surface next to the spiral where he'd drawn the piggy. The sudden emotional explosion drew the attention of the teacher, who took one look at his piggy picture, and her eyes welled up with tears.

"You poor thing! I once had a piggy I loved too ..." was all she said before she began sobbing. Eventually, she dismissed class early because she was too sad to go on with the lecture she had been in the middle of ... Or something. Whatever the reasoning was, everyone was alternately trying to comfort GIR and thank him after that display, because he was sad or something from his piggy-centric thoughts, but he had also gotten them out of class early. After leaving the room once he'd packed up his things, GIR proceeded to wander around the halls and sort of look for where his other classes were. He had managed to find his next class, titled CPU which he soon found to be a class on computers, relatively easily.

"Now class, we're going to be moving onto some more advanced topics today," the man at the front of the class said in a tone that suggested he was a drill sergeant. "Try to keep up with me; fall behind, and I will TAKE NO SURVIVORS!" he leaned down and sort of ... screamed in one girl's face, which made her start crying. He proceeded to ignore her as he continued. "Now class; _this_ is a tower. You all have them in front of you - they're part of your computer, which we covered a week ago." And it was true; they were in a computer lab, and there were in fact computers sitting in front of every student, as well as a few empty ones.

"And THIS," he said, as if he was going to show them the secrets of the universe, "is the ON SWITCH." A vein popped out on his neck as he nearly screamed this, and GIR shrank down slightly. "If you FLIP IT, the computer console should TURN ON." GIR waited for further instructions. And was sadly disappointed when he realized that they wouldn't be getting more ... This was at least three weeks into the class, because it wasn't the beginning of the skool year.

Suffice to say, GIR became bored, and thereby distracted by attempting to entertain himself, rather quickly.

"Ooooh ... What's this do? What's that do?" after his machine was turned on, it asked for a log-on and a password on the main screen before you could access the programs. And so, he started pushing buttons on the keyboard. Now, these weren't random sequences of buttons, because he wasn't _stupid_ \- the log-on and password were written underneath each screen; the log-on was "Computer23" (which was the number computer GIR was on) and password was "Room117" (which was the room number of the Lab they were in). It just sort of ... _looked_ like he didn't know what he was doing, and that he might've been making random keystrokes. However, no one _else_ seemed to think he was clueless, because when the computer logged on and played that song that it does at start-up, everyone else in the room stopped and stared.

He was then declared a genius and dismissed from class.

* * *

"WOO-HOO! I'M RUNNING, WHOO-HOOO" he screamed this as he ran around the track outside; today they were doing the mile run in the class labelled PED on The Paper, and GIR, who was now in shorts, a t-shirt, other human Physical Education attire, (which, while he was in the locker room changing, he had exclaimed "I'M NAKED" with a flail; the other students in the locker room had laughed too, and done the same), was all for this 'running' thing. He liked to run. Well, at least, he _thought_ he did previous to becoming a human meat sack, and he still thought he did because at the moment he had something called an 'adrenaline rush', which he had heard of before ... So, he was able to sprint around the track four times like his ass was on fire without pause. The coach, who had been the homeroom overlord, clocked him and stared at his watch, professing in a shocked tone that a new record had been made.

When he slowed to a stop, the adrenaline rush ceased with a few second delay, and GIR promptly collapsed.

* * *

He woke up some time in the nurse's office later, and just sort of ... wandered away after falling twice because his stupid meat sack body wasn't cooperating. She told him it was sixth period before she stopped paying attention to him, and that meant according to The Paper he was to go somewhere called "CAF", whatver that was. Eventually he received clarification that it was where students when to consume human food. Or at least something with questionable consumption capabilities...

When he was walking out, the nurse did ask him where he was going, to which he promptly responded, "I want a taco - or maybe I'll get a burrito. BOURIIIITOOOOOOOOO!" Before jogging out of the room spastic-ly and down the hall. However, he stopped very quickly after he started; it was almost like he needed a battery re-charge because he was very tired, and his human meat sack organs were hurting in his middle-area. In fact, his abdomen was suddenly making some weird noises that made his blue eyes widen in distress. Oh no ... What if he was broken ...?

He needed to find this 'CAF' and soon, or else he might self destruct - which would have been fine if he had been a robot, but since he was pretty sure humans don't come back from that, he figured that in this case it was probably the opposite of fine. After about ten minutes of wandering the nearly empty halls, he had managed to find his way to the place called the CAF, which was evidently short for "Cafeteria", and got in line with the rest of the human meat sacks. Unfortunately, they didn't have any Tacos ... In fact, GIR wasn't sure exactly what they were throwing on the tray that he had taken like everyone else ... some strange slop or ... He wasn't sure. In fact, he wasn't sure it was safe for human meat sack consumption, something that he now sort of needed to be vaguely worried about ...

He sat down at a table and looked at the tray before deciding to enthusiastically consume everything on piled on it; it sort of reminded him of Mac Meatie's Meat, though like that place he wasn't quite sure what he had been served was meat ... But he liked Mac Meatie's, so ... He not only consumed his portion, but went back and got another one ... And another one ... ... You see, GIR was used to being capable of eating as much of whatever he wanted, because it just sort of sat in his stomach - he could actually probably eat it again infinitely since no digestion to speak of happened. The problem was that he failed to realize that this was entirely because he was a robot. Now, that was not so much the case. In fact, now it felt like he wasn't going to be able to keep it down; he suddenly started doing this strange hiccup-jolt motion he would identify later as the beginnings of dry heaving. Eventually this motion yielded him sprinting across the room, again screaming. But this time as he streaked out of the Cafeteria, he was proclaiming,

"WOOOOO-HOOOOO! I'M GONNA BE _SICK_." GIR barely made it to the bathroom before emptying the contents of his extremely over-stuffed stomach into a toilet, managing to not get any of it on his jacket, t-shirt, or pants miraculously. This was old hat to him, or so he thought it would be - he used to do this in jest all the time as a robot; throwing up that is. The problem was, there was never any muscle contraction or stomach acid to go along with it, just mashed up food being ejected by gears and mechanisms ... _This_ was ... Well ... let's just suffice to say that this was a very different experience now, and he would never strive to do it in jest or otherwise again, as it was more than slightly unpleasant.

He failed to notice that there were humans in the bathroom along with him, and he also failed to notice that they were females; he really didn't realize that there were two different bathroom doors to enter into, he'd just run to the closer one. And now he was sort of stumbling out of the stall after he'd flushed and rinsing his mouth with water - that was something new as well, he concept of flavors and some being unpleasant. That nasty tasting stuff that he had in his throat that sort of burned a lot being one of those unpleasant ones. Eventually he left the fully tiled room, wandering back towards the CAF, where he was to remain stationed until the next Room Change as Dictated by The Paper. Because of his preocupation with returning to the CAF, GIR also missed the girls that were staring at him in shock, mostly likely because he had just run into the girls' bathroom. After watching him leave the room, they all slowly turned to look at each other, and in unison they spoke.

"Ooooh ... So _that's_ how he does it ... ..." All of them turned to look at the stall GIR had excited after vomiting up the majority of the food he'd crammed into his stomach. Then, completely unceremoniously, four of the five turned and walked into the vacant stalls, the last one leaning over the garbage can.

The in-unison retching could be heard all the way down the hall.

GIR didn't hear this though; he was already back in the CAF, sitting at a table, distantly pondering something. Throughout the entire morning, he had yet to see the master's rival, Dib. He hadn't seen him in the halls, and he hadn't had any classes with him or anything. He hadn't had any classes with his master either, and there were only three more periods left according to The Paper. Of course, GIR didn't know what was going to happen _after_ the classes on The Paper ended, but he was sure he'd find out eventually.

When he'd re-entered the lunchroom, GIR sat down at the place where he had been sitting before, collected his tray, and took it to the place that he had seen the other humans putting theirs once they were empty. He proceeded to sit down again, and take out his video game system; it was a little hand held version that he didn't know was the same as Gaz's. As time went on he had basically run out of movies to watch in the years that they had been on earth, and so, he had resorted to video games for entertainment. He beaten this one already, and was now going for a High Score.

"HEY DORK, FORGOT YOUR LUNCH AGAIN!?" GIR didn't look up as he heard something _Thwack_ into something else, and then another something clatter to the floor - he had become desensitized to loud sounds pretty quickly with that bell ringing twice every period. With the noise and ruckus that went on in his master's lab, it hadn't been hard to learn to tune most sounds out.

"FOOD FIGHT!" However, there was suddenly meat that he wasn't sure was actually meat flying at him, and he ducked under the table, thinking that he probably didn't want it to get on him, as clothes were difficult to get clean, and he was no longer made of chrome metal. What if his meat sack skin stained? He was sure his master wasn't going to let him use water to clean it, and since that was the main method he knew of the meat sacks cleaning themselves, GIR really couldn't afford to be stained.

It became increasingly evident that he wasn't going to be able to stay where he was seated as something that might or might not have been mashed potatoes landed a few inches to the side of him. So, GIR did the only thing he could - he started crawling away, sinking down under the lunch table and moving so that he traveled under the table adjacent to his, and then next to that one, picking his way across the room slowly with his bag on one arm and his video game in hand, trying to get out of the room that was being covered slowly but surely in another layer of 'food'.

Stopping under a table to try and find the exit, because he was pretty sure he had been going in circles for the past few moves, he didn't notice that there was a very familiar pair of black boots in front of him, and that his master's rival was very likely to be attached to them ...

.

**The End ...?**

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Footnotes:

1 - it hurts me, but yes, 'school' is going to be spelled 'skool' for this entire fanfic unless we accidentally spell it correctly, but we'll try not to let that happen, as backwards as that seems ... That is how it is spelled in the series, so unfortunately, that is how it will be spelled here as well. Yeah.

2 - 'Alamgir', according to the internet, is a name meaning 'conqueror'. xD


End file.
